A Friend’s and Relative’s Guide to Supporting the Family with Autism: How Can I Help?

“Essential reading to help families cope with the stress of parenting a child with autism. Friends and relatives often do not know how to be supportive. This book will provide many insights into the complex emotions of receiving a diagnosis. Insights gained from reading this book will help maintain relationships between friends and relatives of a family with a child with autism.”

—Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and The Way I See It

When a child is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), what the family really needs, and often lacks, is positive reassurance and understanding from those closest to them. This book is packed with advice on how extended family members and friends can provide the necessary support.

Explaining the diagnosis and characteristics of ASD, this helpful guide uses examples from real families to illustrate the complex feelings that parents and each member of the family are likely to go through after a child is diagnosed. It gives practical tips on help that might be needed most, details the possible changes that will take place as the family adjusts and concludes with a comprehensive guide to other useful sources of information.

This book will help strengthen relationships between parents and their extended family and friends, enabling a reliable support system to develop which will remain crucial to the child throughout their life.

Jessica KingsleyPublishers : $19.95

Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome

Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome is both a practical and a personal account of one ASD student's successful experience of going to college. This accessible book focuses on how to get there and stay there: deciding to go, how to get in and how to get the most out of it. Ann Palmer advises parents and professionals how to prepare the student for the transition from school and home life to a new environment and educational challenge, and how to support them through potential problems such as academic pressure, living away from home, social integration and appropriate levels of participation in college. She offers helpful strategies that will encourage and inspire parents and students and show that college can be a suitable option for students with an autism spectrum disorder, as well as the basis for a successful independent life later.

This book is essential reading for any parent considering college as an option for their child, disability service providers in colleges and for ASD students themselves.

Jessica KingsleyPublishers : $19.95

Parenting Across the Autism Spectrum

Parenting Across the Autism Spectrum, recently named the “2007 Autism Society of America Literary Work of the Year,” offers a personal perspective and practical guidance for parents at the start of their journey with autism, especially those whose children are newly diagnosed. It also provides useful insights for professionals working with individuals across the autism spectrum and their families.

Maureen F. Morrell and Ann Palmer are raising two very different children: Justin, a whirlwind of activity and mood swings, who is supervised in a residential farm community, and Eric, quiet and passive, who lives independently at college. The authors give an account of the striking similarities as well as the stark differences in their experiences of parenting children at opposite extremes of the autism spectrum.

The two mothers speak openly about their children's diagnosis and early childhood through to adolescence, young adulthood and the day they leave home. They are honest about the struggles they had anticipated and the challenges that took them by surprise. Through their friendship and two decades of shared experiences of parenting an ASD child, each has gained a clear understanding of her own strengths and limitations, as well as those of her child.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers : $19.95

Families of Children With Autism: What Educational Professionals Should Know

Families of Children With Autism: What Educational Professionals Should Know provides an overview of the role of educational professionals in the lives of families of children with autism. A framework for understanding these families is presented with a discussion of the stressors they face, the barriers to building collaborative relationships, and the ways professionals can help these families cope. The book also offers tips for working with families in each stage of their child's development.

This book is a part of Prufrock Press' Practical Strategies in Autism Education Series. This series offers timesaving books on critical topics for educating students with autism spectrum disorders. These books are filled with practical information and advice, thus making them an ideal resource for classroom teachers, preservice teachers, and graduate students.